


twisted this feeling walked out of shape

by Merideath



Series: into the woods [8]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/F, First Kiss, It Came From Tumblr, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 23:04:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7011838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merideath/pseuds/Merideath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Love spells are a dangerous thing, with a price higher than herbs and honey,” Peg said.</p>
<p>“Copper coins?”</p>
<p>“A promise.”</p>
<p>“A promise of what?”</p>
<p>“A promise of your first-born child,” the witch said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	twisted this feeling walked out of shape

**Author's Note:**

> This story came about because fairy tales (writing one wasn't enough obviously), and I was missing Angie something fierce in the second season of Agent Carter. I am always a little anxious and cautious of writing Peggy, but writing her in an AU didn't feel so scary, I was reading through various fairy tales trying to decide which one would fit best when I stumbled across a post on tumblr that struck a cord. The post is [here](http://typhoidmeri.tumblr.com/post/143629165983/your-reference-here-absedarian) so you can read it. Hopefully I did a good enough job turning the idea into a story.
> 
> Thanks go to aenaria for handholding and dizzyredhead for the fab beta'ing job. 
> 
> Title from 'Is This Real?' by Lisa Hall

There was always the witch. Old Peg was her name, half blind and old as the crumbling walls of the keep on the river bend. The witch lived in the deep woods beyond the border of the village of Ell. 

This particular witch was neither blind nor old, but she inherited the title when the previous Old Peg packed her bags and left her with an iron key, an amulet of silver and stone, and the weight of a name. 

Peg loved being a witch. She loved casting spells, and brewing potions for the village folk, and speaking with raven, and bear, and wolf. She knew the secrets of the forest, where the sweetest water flowed, and the ripest berries grew. 

Still, it was a lonely life.

In the village lived a beautiful girl and her ambitious mother. The girl grew flowers and herbs in the garden. Roses and lavender, mint and thyme, and the sweet angelica for which she was named. 

“Take this to Old Peg,” the girl’s mother said. She filled Angelica’s apron with bundles of dried herbs from the garden, a round loaf of dark bread, a pot of sweet lavender butter, and one of honey capped in wax. “Ask her to give you a spell to find you a rich husband. One to dress you in velvets, and jewels, the same blue as your pretty eyes.”

“What of love, mother?” Angelica asked. She was a good girl, sweet, and biddable, and kind, but she thrust her jaw up just a little, rose petal pink lips firming. 

“Oh, my sweet daughter, love fades the same as the beauty of youth. No, go, do as I bid you before shadows cross the path.”

“Yes, mother,” Angelica said with a curtsy that wobbled at the end. Her mother clucked her tongue and shook her head, and Angelica felt her face burn hot as the summer sun.

She found the ancient blue stone that pinned the path at the edge of witch’s woods. The twin of the stone, with its weathered markings, sat beside the stone cottage in the woods that Old Peg called home. The path wound like a ribbon through the trees, looping round stones and skirting the grasping roots of trees. The path was enchanted with a mischievous nature. It was always the same path, but never the same steps. Sometimes the path would roll up, like a ball of wool, when the witch did not wish for visitors to disturb her peace.

The woods were anything but quiet as Angelica's feet tread upon the path. Birdsong filtered through the treetops, and the path wove near a little stream that splashed and babbled against smooth stones. 

The folds of her pale green skirts collected dewdrops from curling ferns and a patch of sweet mint. As she followed the twisting path through the woods she spoke to herself, practicing the words she would say to the witch.

“Old Peg, my mother has sent me with herbs, and bread, and sweet butter,” the girl said. “I have come to ask for a potion for love or luck to find a husband rich as the old gods.”

“Which is it, love or luck?” asked a voice full of amusement. 

The girl spun on her heel, one hand clutching at her chest to still the wild beating of her heart. “Old Peg?”

“Who else do you expect lives in these woods?” the witch said, red lips curving in a wry smile. Old Peg was dressed in cornflower blue trews and a blouse white as hellebore in bloom. A red leather cinch circled her waist, and sturdy boots, covered in dark earth, were on her feet. 

The witch was older than Angelica by only a handful of years, with hair as dark as the girl’s own, and warm eyes the color of good earth and autumn leaves.

“My mother had me bring you these, and ask for your magic to bespell me a husband,” the girl said, eyes bright and chin up.

“Love spells are a dangerous thing, with a price higher than herbs and honey,” Peg said.

“Copper coins?”

“A promise.”

“A promise of what?”

“A promise of your first-born child,” the witch said. A kernel of hope burned in her chest that the girl would run. Peg had no use for a babe, but there were rules to kindling witch magic. Rules that she could not break, only bend a little to her will.

“I promise,” Angelica said. 

The bargain was struck and sealed with a drop of Angelica’s blood and a kiss, a chaste pressing of mouths that left the girl’s lips buzzing like the bees that grew fat on the flowers in the garden. 

…

“Have you chosen a bridegroom yet?” asked the witch. She leaned on the wooden gate to Angelica’s herb garden. The girl sat among the flowers, fingers stained green as she pulled weeds from the earth. 

“Not yet,” said the girl. She wiped her hands on her rough linen apron, as she climbed to her feet. “Mother is waiting for a better offer than the miller’s son. She hopes the spell will entangle Lord Spencer.” 

“Mmmm,” said the witch. 

“He’s very rich, and they say he has a great many houses and is as handsome as a fox,” said Angelica. 

“Perhaps,” said the witch. “Be careful, child. The prettiest things can be the most dangerous to untried hearts.”

“How could a witch know about hearts?”

“A witch is still a woman, with a woman’s heart,” Peg said. She was a witch, not a nun, she had loved before. Loved and lost.

…

The witch did not see the girl for many months, not until the forest creatures were growing fat on autumn’s bounty. The woods were painted in crimson and gold, and the wind carried the scent of rain and ice. 

“Have you come to ask for another bit of magic?” Peg asked the girl standing by the marker stone. 

Angelica jumped, clutching the hooded cape draped over her shoulders. “No...that’s not what I’m here for. I...I need sanctuary.”

“The convent is in the other direction.”

“But I owe you my firstborn,” Angelica said. The girl tilted her chin up, as defiant as she could be in asking a witch to take her in. Her hands trembled and strayed to the nearly flat plane of her belly beneath her dress. A dark bruise marred the girl’s pale cheek, and her bottom lip was split. “Please, I have nowhere else to go.”

“Do you wish for another spell?”

“No, witch, no more spells for love or lust, the price isn’t worth it. He wanted, but that is all.”

“Do you love him?”

“I...I could have loved him,” Angelica said. She licked her lips and tried not to wince.

“I've learned that dwelling on what might have been, it's no way to live,” Peg said. “Come inside, girl, before the heavens open on us.”

“Are you a weather witch?”

“No, I just looked up,” Peg said and rolled her eyes up at the purple-tinged storm clouds racing across the top of the trees. “Perhaps the rain will wash the muck from your lord’s boots, if not his tongue.”

The witch’s cottage was old, the garden neglected, flowers gone to seed, vines that choked the roses, blossom and fruit vying for attention. Inside, the cottage was cluttered; dirty bowls stood in a pile on the table, clusters of jars and bottles balanced precariously upon warped wooden shelves, bundles of flowers and herbs hung from oak beams, and a massive three-legged cat was curled up on a basket of linen, tucked between a carved wooden chair and the roaring fire. 

Peg made tea with a handful of dried leaves and blossoms as Angelica told her tale. She spoke of the lies of men, the hands that made her blood drip upon the flagstones and the child that grew beneath her heart. Peg stirred the tea with a wooden spoon that dripped with golden honey and licked her fingers clean. “Tea. It will help you heal.

“I can be useful,” Angelica said. She held the earthen cup held under her chin, fragrant tendrils of steam rose up and soothed her dry eyes and bruised skin. “I can cook, and clean, and garden. The garden is in such a state. Let me work until my fingers are green and I forget what could have been.”

“Drink up, girl, and I’ll put clean things on the bed. We shall see what the morrow brings.” 

That night as the girl slept, a spelled and dreamless sleep in the witch’s bed, the witch herself slipped from the forest. Peg walked the path between the shadows. A knife hung from her belt but she did not need the sharpness of a blade, only the wickedness of her tongue. She found Lord Spencer asleep in another woman’s bed. His knuckles were bruised, and the smile on his sleeping face was smug.

“Coward,” Peg said. She could have ended him then, slipped the tip of her blade between his ribs with a sweet little twist. Called death upon him with salt and copper, transformed him to be as ugly on the outside as he was within, but Angelica had almost loved him. 

Sometimes almost was all you had. 

In the end it wasn’t a curse that spilled from Peg’s lips, but a blessing. The witch blew a kiss to the sleeping lord. “May you harvest what you sow, milord, and speak only truth.” 

Bruises healed and days turned to weeks and the girl stayed with the witch in the small cottage in the woods. Angelica carved herself a place in the witch’s home. She washed the dishes and tended the neglected garden until her hands would have bleed if not for a spell Peg kissed into her fingertips. 

The season turned, though the weather never seemed to touch the cottage or it’s garden. The raspberries on their canes and the strawberries beneath the window sills always seemed to be in fruit and flower. Painful memories of Angelica’s foolish choices faded and were replaced by Peg’s warm eyes, and shining smiles. They slept in the same bed, Peg curled around Angelica, their fingers twined over the swell of her belly. All under the watchful gaze of Sousa the cat, and the wolves that guarded the witch’s woods. 

The witch’s heart was fit to burst with the love that grew each and every day Angelica stayed and wove herself into Peg’s world. The loneliness and silence of her days were now filled with laughter in the garden, hot cups of tea shared in flickering firelight, earth beneath her fingernails, and smiles that warmed cold nights. 

Peg was eating a piece of cake with her fingers, hunched over a stained grimoire when Angelica drew her free hand to her belly. The baby thumped against Peg’s palm and the witch smiled and bent forward to press her lips to Angelica’s sweet mouth. The kiss was achingly sweet, made more so by the honey cake lingering on Peg’s tongue. A kiss of love and promise.

“Angie,” Peg gasped and pressed her forehead to Angelica’s.

“I know how you feel, witch,” Angelica said. She pulled the cake from Peg’s lax fingers and shoved it between her smiling lips.


End file.
